This is an welcome news. My guess is that if proper efforts are made then the situation with respect to air connectivity in Odisha could be as follows:
Bhubaneswar airport would have a few international flights, better connectivity to big cities across India and small planes flying to nearby smaller airports.
Jharsuguda airport would have flights to several cities in India.
Airports in Rourkela, Berhampur, Jeypore and Rasgovindpur would have small planes (20-40 seaters) flying mainly to nearby larger airports.
In the next tier will be airports at Angul, Therubali, Utkela (Kalahandi) and others. (See the list of airstrips in Odisha here.) I think because of the industries Angul and Therubali will be the leading contenders.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) plans to privatise 15 out of 40 non-operational airports across the country on a public-private partnership (PPP) basis to make them function again.
“Out of 40 non-operational airports, 15 have the potential to operate and we have planned to give the airports to private developers to operate it for a concession period,” said a top AAI official, who did not wish to be identified.
The airports to be given to private companies are in Rajasthan, Orissa, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and north-eastern states. ..
As per the AAI page at http://www.aai.aero/allAirports/nonop_airports.jsp the non-operational AAI airport in Odisha is in Jharsuguda. This is the good news for Odisha. The slightly bad news is that the Chakulia airport in Jharkhand is probably also in that list. It is 67 kms from both Jamshedpur and Kharagpur and about 80 kms from Baripada. If that takes off the proposed airport in Rasgovindpur (in Mayurbhanj) will not happen soon. But overall from the tri-state perspective Chakulia is a better location.
From the above, and its actions in the past, it seems that Orissa government’s future plan in terms of airports are:
Make an international airport in Bhubaneswar. (Shifting to the new location will take another 10 years.)
Make an airport in Jharsuguda to cater for Bargarh-Sambalpur-Jharsuguda-Rourkela belt: Will take 2-3 yrs to be operational.
Plan for an airport in Jeypore: Will take 8-10 years to be operational
Plan for an airport in Rasgovindpur (near Jaleswar, close to Balasore and Baripada): Will take 8-10 years to be operational
Couple of implications of the above are: Berhampur and Rourkela may not get functional airports in the near future (say next 10 years) as they are close to airports at Bhubaneswar and Jharsuguda respectively. The overall airport situation in Orissa in 10 years will be as follows:
Now lets analyze how feasible the airports at Jeypore and Rasgovindpur will be.
Rasgovindpur: It will be 30-40 kms from Balasore and Baripada; 70-80 kms from Digha; 80-90 kms from Kharagpur mostly on the expressway; 90-100 kms from Bhadrak mostly on the expressway, close to two expressways; 200kms from Kolkata airport; 210-220 kms from Tatanagar and 260-270 kms from Bhubaneswar. (Tatanagar being only 170 kms from Ranchi may not have a viable commercial airport for some time. Kharagpur being 120 kms from Kolkata will not have a viable commercial airport for a long time.) Thus it is far enough to the nearest airports in Bhubaneswar and DumDum (Kolkata), but at the same time there are enough population centers (Balasore, Baripada, Bhadrak, Digha, Kharagpur, Medinipur, Jhargram, Ghatsila) that will be close to this airport than the existing airports. So this aiport could serve a significant population in Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
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